WIAW quinze- Vegetable Victuals

Happy Wednesday everyone!  This month is a celebration of vegetation, a.k.a Love your veggies month.

This WIAW I had quite a few vegetables, but I will try and do better next week.  I started out my day with one of my favorite ways to prepare vegetables: roasted.

Breakfast:

Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Onion, Uncured Nitrate-Free Bacon, and Fruit Salad

  I seriously can't think of a better way to cook vegetables.  Roasting them in an oven is incredibly easy, consistently delivers on the flavor, and can be used for practically any vegetable.  In addition to onions and sweet potatoes I've roasted parsnips, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, pumpkin, acorn squash, beets, butternut squash, kale, carrots, eggplant, potatoes, tomatoes,  and jalapenos.   

Lunch:

Baked Quinoa bites with Green Onion and Homemade Pickled Jalapenos

Lunch was admittedly a little light on the veggies, although I ate it with some more fruit salad, so at least I had some salad ;).  These baked little nuggets of goodness contain another one of my favorite ways to eat vegetables, pickled!  I absolutely adore pickles, and I'm supper psyched to try making some other varieties this summer.

Snack:

Homemade Granola with Hazelnuts, Dates, and Sunflower Seeds on top of Greek Yogurt

Sadly this snack did not contain any vegetables *womp womp womp*.  However, it was insanely delicious.  If you've never made your own granola, you should seriously give it a go.  It's super easy and way better than store bought because you can customize it to have anything you want.  

To make my version (based on Ina Garten's version) you will need:

4 cups rolled oats

1 cup chopped hazelnuts

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup honey

1 cup chopped pitted dates

1 cup sunflower seeds

Directions:

1.  Heat the oven to 350F.  In a large bowl mix the oats, hazelnuts, and salt.  In a small bowl mix the oil and honey, whisking to combine.  Pour the oil/honey mixture over the oats mixture and toss to evenly coat.  

2.  Spread the mixture on a large baking sheet (I lined mine with a silicone baking mat) and but in the oven.  The granola will need to bake for approximately thirty minutes until golden brown.  Be sure to take it out every ten minutes to give it a good stir to insure even browning.

3.  Once the granola is finished baking, allow it to cool and then stir in the seeds and dates.

Dinner:

Roasted Broccoli and Potato Cheddar Soup

So last week I decided to make a Corn Chowder.  Well while I was cooking one adjustment led to another, which led to another, and I ended up with a soup that had absolutely nothing to do with corn chowder!  Anyway, that soup was so good I had to make it again this week.  The roasted broccoli really makes this soup.  Recipe coming soon!  Here's the <<recipe>>!

Dessert:

Black Bean Chocolate Cake *Gluten Free!!!*

You read that right, this cake has beans in it!  I'm actually not a really big cake fan, but this month's Crazy Cooking challenge was chocolate cake and I'd really been wanting to try a bean based baked good, so I figured I'd give it a go.  It was definitely a success!  The cake is moist, chocolaty, and not too sweet.  Check out my post for the recipe.

All in all it was a delicious day featuring some of my favorite veggies.  As always much thanks to Jenn for hosting this wonderful party!